


igne ludere

by hydroxy



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: AU - Sky High (2005), Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Comic Book Violence, Enemies to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-25 12:41:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30089253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hydroxy/pseuds/hydroxy
Summary: When Mark is born, he is the son of Commander and Jetstream, the greatest pair of superheroes the world has ever known.When Mark turns twelve, he comes to the jarring realization that he may never gain his powers.When Mark is fourteen, he plays with fire.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee
Comments: 19
Kudos: 112





	igne ludere

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by the greatest social commentary film of my childhood: [sky high.](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405325/) you don't need to have watched it to understand what happens in this story, but i still suggest that you do (because it's awesome! superheroes! plot twists! friends to lovers)! thank you to all my friends for proofing this and leaving your kind words, as always. this wouldn't have been possible without you!
> 
> without further ado, i hope you enjoy!

When Mark is born, he is the son of Commander and Jetstream, the greatest pair of superheroes the world has ever known. 

His name is plastered on every magazine and television screen for the world to see before he is even able to speak, and he spends his childhood waiting for the day he can finally join his parents on the battlefield. His mother liked to call their family the Lee Three, destined for greatness and triumph over every supervillain that ever dared to cross their path. His father liked to remind him of the superhuman gifts brewing in his veins, waiting to one day be set free so that Mark could finally fulfill his duty as a Lee, as a _hero._

When Mark grows older, forehead acne and painful growth spurts to accompany the rite of passage into teenhood that is puberty, he slowly comes to the jarring realization that he may never gain his powers.

* * *

His first day at Sky High starts as any other first day of high school would: with a flying bus that lands on a floating campus made of steel and sealed inside of an invisibility shield. His classmate is frozen into place by a cryokinetic just as they take their first steps off the bus, and Renjun, his best friend of six years, holds his hand as they make their way towards the gym for power placement. There, he comes to understand that social distinctions are made not by appearance or status but by the labels of _hero_ and _sidekick,_ words that will dictate the trajectory of the rest of his life. 

Sidekicks are forgotten, discarded—nameless figures made to fade into the background. Sidekicks, euphemistically referred to as _hero support,_ are just that: _sidekicks,_ relegated to the mundanity of drycleaning supersuits and oiling laser guns.

Commander and Jetstream are heroes. 

Mark Lee, their one and only son, is not a hero.

He clutches Renjun’s hand so hard that Renjun has to pinch him to let go, a pitiful frown pulling at his lips as the rest of the gym fills up behind them. Renjun is the only one, as of this moment, that knows about Mark’s problem.

Most supers realize their powers right as they turn twelve, just as their voices begin to crack with the stretch of their bones. 

Mark has waited two years to realize his powers, waking up every morning to attempt to lift the two-ton dumbbell his father gifted him for his twelfth birthday, and failing every single time. He is now fourteen and powerless, and in just a few minutes, Renjun won’t be the only one who knows about Mark’s problem—about his _secret._

 _“Alright, listen up._ My name is Coach Boomer. You may also know me as _Sonic Boom._ Here’s how power placement is going to work.”

Coach Boomer steps to the side of the steel platform ascending from the floor of the gym, his dark sunglasses shielding them from his intimidating gaze, and gestures towards center stage. 

“You will step up here and show me your power. _Yes,_ you will do so in front of the entire class.”

A chorus of disappointed groans echoes throughout the gym. Renjun gently squeezes Mark’s arm. 

_“I_ will be the one determining whether you will be assigned as _hero,_ or,” he pauses, _“sidekick._ Now, let’s get one thing straight: my word is law. _My judgement is final.”_

He tilts his head down to stare Mark directly in the eyes, almost as if he knew exactly what was going on in Mark’s head.

“Are we clear?”

Mark immediately nods, shouting _“Yes, Coach!”_ at the top of his lungs despite himself. No one dares to laugh at him.

_“Good.”_

First in line is a student named Yukhei, who shoots them a mix between a grimace and a smile as he steps up onto the platform. He closes his eyes, takes in a deep breath, and then in the blink of an eye, what stands before them is not human, but monster, a hulking figure made entirely of stone. Coach Boomer drops a car on the thing—on _Yukhei_ , Mark has to remind himself—and he lifts it above his head with ease. _Hero._

Coach Boomer quickly funnels through the rest of the class after that, leaving no room for small talk or placement complaints. Park Jisung, with magenta highlights that fall to barely cover his eyes, is a shapeshifter that can only transform into a hamster; Zhong Chenle, dressed in a highlighter yellow getup with the whitest shoes Mark has ever seen, has the power of bioluminescence and indignantly grumbles to himself after being placed into hero support; and Jung Sungchan, the second son of Volcane, can turn into a puddle of slime. One after another, students immediately fall into their new class divisions, sidekicks outnumbering heroes. 

Na Jaemin and Lee Jeno, dressed in matching striped turtlenecks and ripped skinny jeans, smirk when they step onto the stage. Jaemin reveals himself to have super speed, and Jeno stretches himself thin to wrap his body around the entire perimeter of the gym. _Heroes,_ and then there is only one more name left on the roster.

When Mark finally steps onto the platform, his hands are clammy and his head is dizzy, his body barely held up by his trembling legs. Renjun stares up at him with his bottom lip between his teeth, fingers digging into the heels of his palms as Mark returns his worried gaze. 

He clasps his hands together in one last prayer for some supernatural force to possess his body and relieve him of his suffering, and when reality hits him in the face to remind him that he is still only Mark Lee, powerless son to two supers, he turns to Coach Boomer and whispers into his ear, “I don’t have powers.”

It’s a relief to finally say the words aloud, and yet as the sentence parts with his tongue, dread consumes him whole. 

“I see,” Coach Boomer smirks. “Messin’ around, just like your old man.”

And then Mark finds himself splayed flat on the ground with a car on top of him, his lips barely kissing the cool metal of the engine as he squeaks, _“Coach, I told you I don’t have_ —”

“I get it, I get it,” Coach Boomer interrupts him with a knowing roll of his eyes. “You’re a flier, just like your mother.”

The car disappears and a springboard erupts from under Mark’s back to fling him forward, and all he can do is brace himself for the impact of the stone column that greets his chest, his body flopping to the floor as gravity pulls him back down with ease. 

When Mark comes to, he finds all eyes on him, pitiful smiles plastered on the faces of the crowd that pull apart just as Coach Boomer approaches him, and, with a shake of his head, mutters the fateful word: _sidekick._

* * *

“How’d your parents take it?”

“They didn’t. I didn’t tell them.”

“Mark, you _need_ to tell them.”

“What was I supposed to do, Renjun? My dad showed me his _secret sanctum,_ and you expect me to ruin his life by telling him that his son is a typical?”

“He has a point,” Chenle agrees through his mouthful of food, flinching when Jisung slaps his shoulder and scolds him for talking while chewing. “Sorry.”

“It’s only going to keep eating you alive if you continue to hide it, Mark,” Renjun sighs, a gentle hand on Mark’s arm. 

“Easy for you to say. You’re _literally_ mother nature and you settled for hero support.”

“Labels are stupid,” Renjun mutters, jabbing his fork into the sad pile of mashed potatoes on his styrofoam plate. Mark sighs, returning his attention to his own plate of apple slices paired with a packaged cheeseburger already cool to the touch. 

Then the hairs on the nape of his neck suddenly stand at attention, and when he turns around to confirm his suspicions about a pair of eyes boring into his back, he finds himself staring at a brooding figure with bright red highlights in his hair and a scowl on his face, his knife stabbed into the bleeding flank steak perched upon his porcelain dish.

Mark turns right back around with a loud gulp, nudging Renjun with his elbow as he dips his head low and whispers, “Am I crazy, or is that guy staring at me?”

The rest of their table turns to meet the figure’s gaze, and as Mark shivers in his seat, Sungchan mumbles under his breath, “Dude, that’s _Lee Donghyuck.”_

* * *

Lee Donghyuck, a child born from the rare matrimony of superhero to supervillain. His mother disappeared as soon as his father was imprisoned by the one and only Commander, a quadruple life sentence with no chance of parole until after his third life. His mother bent water, his father manipulated air, and Lee Donghyuck earns his pyrokinetic abilities on his twelfth birthday with a single candle lit by his own fingertips.

When he learns that Mark Lee is the son of the person that imprisoned his father, he swears to make Mark feel the same pain he felt on the day his parents were torn from his home.

* * *

The first time Mark bumps into Lee Donghyuck, he literally erupts into flames—Jeno decides to put on a free show by stretching his arm across the floor and seizing Mark by the ankle, payback for when Mark caught him and Jaemin dunking Sungchan’s head into the toilet. 

Heroes and sidekicks aren’t _friends._ Jaemin and Jeno take it upon themselves to solidify this social standard, easily assimilating into Xiaojun’s clique of hero-borne heroes, bloodlines unmarred by the filth running through the veins of sidekick material or, God forbid, _typicals._

Mark spills his plate of food onto Donghyuck’s hair as he stumbles forward, and before he can even utter a word of apology, Donghyuck turns around and grabs him by the collar to spit, “You think you can do whatever you want just because your name is _Mark Lee?”_

“Can we not do this?” Mark immediately stammers. “I’m sorry that my dad put your dad in jail, but—”

 _“Nobody_ talks about my father. _Especially not you.”_

Fire bursts from Donghyuck’s hands, red and orange licking up his arms as he snarls, and the fight for Mark’s life begins in the middle of the crowded school cafeteria. Jeno trips him again just as Mark lunges for the fire alarm, and with every orb of fire hurled his way, the cafeteria only glows hotter red, lunch tables splitting into pieces from the sheer heat expelled from Donghyuck’s palms, plastic lunch trays melting right into the waxed floor. 

_“Leave him alone!”_

Renjun’s shrill voice splits the crowd into two, all attention now focused on his trembling figure standing underneath Donghyuck’s towering frame, his hands balled into fists as he stares right back at the red in Donghyuck’s eyes. 

Donghyuck cocks his brow, amused, fangs bared from the sheer audacity of a _sidekick_ to further provoke him in his anger, and then his entire body is swallowed whole by flame, poised to hunt and to kill.

There are two ways to force a child into realizing their powers, assuming the child doesn’t die. The first is a bite from a radioactive spider, and the second is a push into a vat of toxic waste. 

There is also a third option, much less popular among supers who wish to see their child bloom right as the clock hits midnight on their twelfth birthday. In the heat of the moment, just as Renjun’s eyes flit down to lock with Mark’s gaze, Mark feels a surge of strength flow right through him and stands, lifting the table high above his head and throwing it, along with Donghyuck, right through the wall just before Donghyuck is able to scorch Renjun to ash. 

* * *

The second time Mark bumps into Donghyuck starts with the same two culprits, Jaemin and Jeno, and ends with the school erupting into cheer as Donghyuck burns the fabric of Mark’s sleeves off, his cheeks flushed and body hot—this time, not from playing with fire. 

“Alright, last round. Jeno, Jaemin,” Coach Boomer bellows with a cock of his brow as he sits by the edge of the rink, “heroes or villains?”

Jaemin breaks into a wolf’s smile, sharing a knowing glance with Jeno before easily declaring, _“Villains.”_

Coach Boomer rolls his eyes, his voice laced with sarcasm as he replies, “Alright, who do you want to beat next?”

Save the Citizen is a useless exercise, Renjun argues, made only to boost the ego of heroes at the price of sidekick embarrassment. Mark doesn’t dare to complain, thankful that they stopped using real citizens ages ago and switched over to life-sized dolls instead. His stomach churns as he stares down the doll dangling from the ceiling over what looks like a deconstructed meat grinder, its metal fangs steadily gyrating in place, ready to eat up its helpless victim.

“We’ll take _him,”_ Jaemin smirks as he points at Mark. 

“And him, too,” Jeno adds, pointing to Donghyuck. 

Mark’s legs quiver as he forces himself to stand, making his way down to the floor of the gym to meet his imminent doom. Half of his brain is currently consumed with the idea of being humiliated in front of the entire student body, and the other half cowers at the idea of Donghyuck throwing _him_ into the meat grinder.

 _But there’s no way,_ Mark tries to convince himself. _We’re on the same team. There’s no way Donghyuck would actually—_

“Okay,” Coach Boomer interrupts his thoughts. “You two,” he stares at Donghyuck and Mark, “are the heroes. You have three minutes to save the citizen.” 

He then turns his head to face the timer, remote in hand, and booms, “Ready, set, _battle.”_

Donghyuck lunges right for Jeno just as Jaemin runs circles around the gym floor, knocking Mark off his feet with every attempted step towards the doll dangling over the metal pulverizer. Mark falls flat on his face once, twice, three times, each time harder than the last, all air knocked from his lungs every time his chest hits the ground.

Mark grunts as he forces himself back up. His ribs threaten to crumble under his own weight, but before Jaemin can dash past him again, Mark takes in a deep breath, pushes himself off the ground, and lands with his fist forced into the gym floor, each slab of wood disjointing from their concrete foundation as the entire building shakes from the rise and fall of the waves originating from Mark’s unmarred knuckles. Jaemin is flung off his feet and into a mailbox as Jeno flies the other way, crashing into a wooden park bench staged next to a streetlamp at the edge of the ring.

Mark then rushes over to Jeno and picks him up with ease, slamming him against the steel of the streetlamp and stretching out his limbs to tie him in place.

“What, _no, wait—”_

“That’s what you get for tripping me,” Mark bites, the crowd around them erupting in laughter to drown out his voice. _“Twice.”_

 _“Hey!”_ Donghyuck jolts him from the high of his temporary victory, _“Save the citizen!”_

Forty seconds.

The citizen dangles lower as the clock ticks down, and just as Mark is about to lunge for the doll and end the game, he sees Jaemin begin to vortex around Donghyuck, the orange glow of Donghyuck’s arms slowly fading away as his body begins to crumple to the ground. He’s _choking,_ Mark realizes. Donghyuck can’t breathe.

Donghyuck can’t breathe, and there are only fifteen seconds left.

It’s easy for his body to act first, his mind following soon after. This is who he is, hero’s blood rushing through his veins as he runs over to where Jaemin is giddily laughing, grabs him by the collar, and flings him towards the plexiglass caging them in with a bitter huff. Jaemin falls to the floor with a splat, and then it’s all over.

Donghyuck catches his breath just as he looks up at Mark, and though the clock continues to tick down, it seems like time completely halts when Mark matches his gaze. His heartbeat pounds in his ears, drowning out the clamoring of students as he gulps and stares his archenemy in the face. There is no malice, no anger to be found in Donghyuck’s eyes this time, and for some reason, that scares Mark more than when he’d first locked eyes with the firebender standing in front of him.

With two seconds left to go, Mark mutters a silent apology as he suddenly lifts Donghyuck up and throws him right at the doll, his body soaring through the air as the doll detaches from its rope and they land on the ground, students exploding in whoops and cheers.

The citizen has been saved.

Mark rushes towards where Donghyuck is laying, his lips pulling into a wide smile as his breaths quicken, pure adrenaline coursing through his veins. 

But in his excitement, his brain loses all sense of coordination, and as students begin to flood the gym floor and crowd around them, Mark trips over his own feet and falls forward.

His arms follow through to cage Donghyuck’s head in, and before he can even register what’s happened, their lips crash together from the momentum pulling him down, his eyes widening as heat begins to travel up his cheeks and flush them bright pink.

He’s _kissing_ Donghyuck. 

Their lips are touching. 

He’s kissing Donghyuck.

There are a few gasps, a few whistles, and then Donghyuck roughly grabs Mark by his arms and sets his shirt on fire, promptly forcing him off of his body with a grunt and storming out of the gym as Mark blinks once and again, trying to figure out what he just got himself into.

* * *

Mark Lee, a child born from the marriage of Commander and Jetstream. His mother has the ability to soar through the sky, and his father can bend steel between his palms without breaking a sweat. Mark Lee earns his super strength when he is fourteen, when he first meets a boy named Lee Donghyuck.

When he kisses Donghyuck for the first time, his insides erupt in butterflies and his heart trembles in his chest, ears hot and eyes wide. He doesn’t realize it yet, but he promises to fill the void of Donghyuck’s heart and home, no matter what it takes.

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this in a sleep-deprived, caffeine-induced haze. thank you so much for reading. as always, i'm incredibly thankful for you! ♡
> 
> [twt](https://www.twitter.com/buffhyucks/) [cc](https://curiouscat.me/buffhyucks)  
> 


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